Get A Room!

~:*:~ Three ~:*:~

Tanner

"Babe, did you already grab the blue suitcase?"

"Yes, I brought it up the last go around."

"I thought that was the purple suitcase?"

"The purple one is still sitting in the front seat."

I pulled my head out of the trunk and walked around to the passenger side door. Layne's purple swivel roll case was buckled up beneath the straps of the seat belt. I let slip a snort as I smiled. "It's not like your bag was going to escape..."

She pulled out a third suitcase and her new backpack from the backseat before explaining, "The suitcase was too heavy so the warning bell kept going off in the car when I tried to drive. I suppose the weight resembles that of a small child or something, so the noise wouldn't stop until I secured the seat belt."

"Are all these bags filled with your clothes?" I asked as I removed the purple case before heading back to the trunk to grab another bag.

"Mostly. There are also some toiletries and hair products in there."

"Why did you pack so much stuff?"

"I wasn't sure how much I'll need!"

"The dorms only have so much closet space..."

"I'll make it all fit."

I shook my head in annoyance. "You only live forty-five minutes away. You can always go home and grab some things when you run out or need to change clothes for the seasons..."

"Forty-five minutes proved to be an impossible journey for you last year, so why should it feel different now?"

Ouch. She really got me good with that one... I had thought we moved passed the snarky remarks. But I suppose she was entitled to her hurt feelings for however long she needed to harbour them. I was the one who pulled back from our relationship in the first place.

I dropped the bags I had been holding so I could give her a reassuring hug.

"I'm sorry, Layne. You know how badly I want this to work out for us."

Her anger seemed to dissipate as I squeezed her tighter. She began to hug me back despite the awkward suitcase that was left on the ground between us.

"I know, Tanner. I'm sorry too. I knew our first year apart was going to be hard... I just wish it hadn't created this weird rift between us. It feels like we're starting from scratch in some ways."

"I know, babe. But I'm positive that we'll get what we had back. Now that we're not so far away from each other, we'll be just as we were in high school."

"Only this time our parents won't be walking in on us in any compromising positions." She joked as she broke free from the hug.

I gave her a sly smile. "One of the perks of being in the dorms together."

We shared a quick kiss on the lips before resuming our task, grabbing as many bags as we could before making our final trip up to her new room.

Layne and I have been dating ever since her freshman year of high school. I was a sophomore, but the age gap didn't stop us from being thrown into various situations and gatherings together. Falling in love proved easier than expected for us.

It was three years of bliss before I left last year for university. We didn't fare so well with a long-distance relationship, growing apart slowly as I failed to come home to her for scheduled visits and holidays. She did her best to come to me on the weekends when she wasn't working, but I was usually too busy with homework to take her out to eat or simply watch a movie in my dorm room. Because of our successful relationship in the three years prior, neither of us had the courage or heart to end things when it was clearly going wrong. We hung on to hope and waited for Layne's acceptance letters to be sent out.